People's Liberation Army Research Facility 4691
Created by the Chinese Government during the Resource Wars, People’s Liberation Army Research Facility 4691 (usually simply referred to as Facility 4691) was a centre in Shanghai dedicated towards the development of advanced technologies for the millitary. Despite years of work and massive funding, none of their projects would reach maturity and operational deployment before the facility was destroyed. History The origins of Facility 4691 lie in the Resource Wars. In their campaigns to control dwindling resources, the leadership of the People’s Liberation Army felt that armed conflict with the United States would be inevitable. While the PLA massively outnumbered the US millitary in terms of raw manpower, the Americans were acknowledged to be far ahead in a number of millitary technological fields. These gaps were considered to be so vital that they would nullify the PLA’s numbers advantage. As such, overcoming them was deemed to be a top priority. Facility 4619 itself was activated in early 2060 in response to the accelerating pace of the Resource Wars. It was placed under the command of Doctor Liu Cheng, a prominent nuclear physicist who’s research had global recognition. Equally important to his appointment was his being related to a member of the central committee, a benefit that gave him access to considerable resources and broad leeway to act. The People’s Liberation Army had identified a number of key areas in which they were lagging, and tasked Cheng and his facility with overcoming them. After examining the list of requirements, Cheng identified numerous key areas where the Americans were either ahead or were the sole occupants in the field. These included energy weapons and battlefield robotics. In response to these challenges, Chang launched a number of projects aimed at addressing these deficiencies through the development of new technologies. In addition, he took on-board other programs that were aimed at improving technologies allready in use by the People’s Republic or aimed at future-proofing its assets against likely events to come. Alternative energy sources were a major field of study, given the depletion of the Peoples’ Republics oil reserves. The invasion of Alaska served to accelerate a number of projects. While outwardly a success, the PLA had been stopped short of its full goals and instead bogged down into a bloody stalemate in Alaska. A part of this was due to the US’ deployment of new weapons to the battlefield, most notably the T-45d Power Armour. Doctor Chen saw this weapon as being the future of warfare, and ordered resources redeployed towards developing an effective counter. A number of programs were shuttered under his orders in order to accommodate this new focus, regardless of how achievable its goals might have been. For the next seven years, Facility 4691 turned was a high-pressure environment where researchers were often faced with insurmountable challenges. These can not only in the form of their research and development goals, but also in the form of often unrealistic goalposts and project milestones that they were obliged to meet. On top of this, they were under constant scrutiny and surveillance by ever-present security personnel assigned to ensure the secrecy of the facility and its work. The result was a high degree of burnout and turnover; not just due to physical exhaustion, but also due to those removed for the facility for failing to meet targets or what was seen as suspicious activity. For all of this intensity and the considerable resources poured into it, Facility 4691 showed very few tangible results. Very few of its projects reached even a prototype stage, and many of those that did failed spectacularly. Despite these setbacks, Doctor Chen was able to successfully deflect responsibility away from himself (usually onto individual project leaders and even random subordinates) while ensuring that his facility remained open and well funded. It was the 2074 American invasion of Mainland China that finally put the brakes on Project 4691’s excesses. The facility’s backers began to demand tangible results that could be used to defend the homeland from invasion and halt, or at least slow, what many saw as being an inevitable defeat. Realising that his future was at risk, as much from the Americans as from his own accountability, Chen put several programs into turnaround, seeking to get functional results, regardless of the price. This period saw a growing number of accidents, bought about by a combination of a high pressure environment, cutting corners and testing of unsafe prototypes. Ultimately, none of this mattered. As the US Army closed in on Shanghai, Dr Chen received orders to close the facility and destroy everything present in order to prevent it from falling into American hands. On his orders, the majority of the facility’s staff were liquidated, and their work destroyed. Finally, the building itself was put to the torch in order to erase any traces of its existence. For all their work, not one of Project 4691’s programs made it to the field, let alone any level of production. Description Physically, Facility 4691 was unimpressive. The exterior of the facility was deliberately modelled to resemble a typical Chinese governmental building, with a bland concrete facade. This decision was made in order to reduce the facility’s profile in the hope that American intelligence would overlook its presence. However, the entire facility was purpose designed from the ground up for the purposes of its research goals. The interior of the building was dominated by laboratories and supporting facilities, such as computer labs, seminar rooms and so on. This portion of the building featured considerable reinforcement and safety facilities in order to protect its occupants or, at the very least, limit any damage caused by their testing of new technologies. However, the building also contained considerable subterranean facilities, including workshops, fabrication facilities, testing ranges and so on to support the work being done. This portion also included living facilities for the staff in order to keep them entirely on-site, including a bomb shelter. As can be expected from a facility run by the Chinese government, the organisation of Facility 4691’s staff was strictly hierarchical. Doctor Chen sat at the head of the facility and oversaw all its programs. His duties included the allocation of resources and staff, as well as the termination of programs that were seen as not preforming or liable to yield useful results. In turn, he answered to the Ministry of Science. Many projects were run to strict timelines with the expectation that they would reach certain milestones by certain dates; in short, they were result driven rather than research driven. In many cases, these goals would be unrealistic ones set out by Dr Chen or the Ministry of Science that the researchers were obliged to follow. The individual projects were heavily siloed to the point where staff from different teams were discouraged from engaging with each other. The leaders of different teams were highly competitive with each other, each seeking to promote their own programs and ensure that they would continue while doing what they could to hoard their resources and staff. Collaboration between teams was difficult to arrange and rarely permitted; arranging such would require an individual researcher to make a case to their team leader who would in turn have to make a case to their team leader who they would be in competition with. Teams were driven on a carrot and stick approach. Those that succeeded were rewarded with comforts and amenities such as pay rises, extra rations, the promise of larger living accommodations and so on. Those that failed to meet their goals could expect to be punished with penalties ranging form the minor (loss of rations, temporary removal of access to facilities and so on) to the severe (demotion, removal from the facility’s staff, reassignment and so on). In severe cases, those that failed to perform would be denounced by their fellows and imprisoned or even executed. The staff of Facility 4691 were recruited from different universities and other research facilities. Doctor Chen used his influence to recruit those that he wanted, which included a number of prominent individuals in their fields. They were supported by an army of engineers, electricians, draftsmen and so on who were tasked with bringing their ideas to life. However, the facility also had more personnel assigned to it in the form of political prisoners, dissidents and even civilian ‘volunteers’ who were used as test subjects for various weapons and other technologies. They were housed in a segregated detention centre underneath the facility, and ultimately were seen as being completely expendable. Finally, the facility also had a staff of security personnel assigned to protect the research and prevent any intelligence leaks. Aside from uniformed soldiers and several commisars, there were also informers among the staff who reported directly to their superiors within state intelligence. Notable Projects During its operation, Facility 4691 launched a number of projects aimed at duplication or countering of advanced American millitary technologies. In other cases, they were aimed at overcoming perceived shortcomings of the People’s Liberation Army and devising solutions to problems that might arise in the future. In many cases, the results off these projects were questionable, if not outright failures. Project DRAGONS BREATH The key goal of Project DRAGON’S BREATH was the development of energy weapons for use by infantry forces. The deployment of such weapons was seen as a priority by the PLA’s leadership. American forces were world leaders in the field, and their use of energy weapons had given them a number of advantages. Laser weapons were more accurate and longer-ranged then conventional rifles, while their energy beams were able to bypass many forms of conventional armour, rendering them useless. In addition, Energy Weapons had an umber of logistical benefits due to their few moving parts and use of rechargeable fusion cell batteries. In practice, the development of practical Laser Weaponry proved to be difficult for Facility 4691 due to a single stumbling block. The team had no equivalent to American fusion cells, and lacked any sort of power system with their level of compact efficiency. Initially, this resulted in massively underpowered Laser Weapons that were more likely to wound a target than kill it, and often were less capable than a conventional firearm. While not a product of Facility 4691, the underpowered laser on the Liberator prototype was a good example of this problem in action. Ironically, the Liberator’s weapon would not be perfected until the researchers at the Fujinya intelligence base directly copied American Fusion Cells. The DRAGON’S BREATH developers sought to overcome this shortfall with a more conventional battery system. However, this system proved to be too bulky to be installed in the weapon, and was instead carried in a rather heavy backpack that was connected to the prototype rifle by a power cord. The result was a weapon that was very bulky and lacked mobility, while still possessing few of the actual advantages of a laser weapon. In addition, the weapon proved to be very fragile, with the lenses for the laser being easily misaligned by what would be typical field conditions. The weapon worked, but disappointed in every single way. Faced with these issues, the decision was made to suspend DRAGON’S BREATH until a better power system could be developed. Project HEAVENLY SWORD Despite the failure of DRAGON’S BREATH, there was still considerable interest in the development of energy weapons. While the prototype laser weapon had failed in virtually every regard, there were a number of other avenues that the Facility 4691 team wanted to explore for a multitude of reasons, not being purged being but one of them. Alternate configurations were examined, with the team settling on the development of charged particle weaponry, a type that the US military were yet to deploy. The prototype HEAVENLY SWORD weapon reused the bulky backpack power system from the DRAGON’S BREATH project, but it was now mated to an entirely new weapon. The cannon was a completely new design, and initial testing suggested that its output would far exceed that of current American laser rifles such as the AER9. While the lack of mobility and bulk of the backpack was still considered an issue, the potential benefits were enough to see the system moved forward to testing. That move would prove to be its undoing. During the first test-firing, blowback from the weapon’s aperture created an unstable feedback loop. The resultant explosion destroyed the prototype weapon and incinerated the test user (while also setting one of the weapons labs on fire). This was enough for the directorship of Facility 4691 to cancel HEAVENLY SWORD, rather than risk its developers blowing up the building. Project TIGER ROAR The third of the trio of energy weapon projects undertaken by Facility 4691, TIGER ROAR was a second attempt to exploit areas where the American military was not believed to be actively perusing research. Rather than a conventional directed energy weapon, the developers on TIGER ROAR were opting to experiment with sonic projection in the hope of creating a broad-area weapon for use against massed formations or to overcome the protection provided by Power Armour suits. A good portion of their goal was, however, to avoid being purged following their previous two failures. (Ironically, the US Military was working on sonic weaponry themselves; the so-called Cosmic Cannon was in fact a fully functional sonic weapon) While the weapon itself was built from the ground up, it was again mated to the same backpack battery system that had powered DRAGON’S BREATH and HEAVENLY SWORD; however, this was intended to be a placeholder system until a more portable power source could be devised. Initial testing at full-power showed that the weapon was functional, which resulted in the Facility 4691 leadership approving of stepping up testing to live human subjects. Testing on ‘volunteers’ proved that the weapon’s capabilities were somewhat overstated compared to the actual results. Test subjects complained of nausea, dizziness and headaches, but compared to the intended goal of producing a lethal sonic weapon these results were very disappointing. Test subjects hit at point-blank range by full-power blasts would become disoriented or suffer from migraines, but actual lethality eluded the designers. An attempt to repackage TIGER ROAR as a crowd control weapon failed, with the directors pointing out that existing systems were more effective while being cheaper to make and easier to use. Project WOODEN MAN Another area where the US Military had an unquestionable lead over the People’s Liberation Army was the field of robotics. Battlefield robots had been essential in the Americans’ efforts to contain the PLA during the Anchorage invasion, and had since become a common site on the battlefield. For the Americans, battlefield robotics offered a number of advantages, not the least of which was allowing them to free up manpower for other roles. While the PLA had the advantage of sheer numbers on its side, there were a number of benefits to be gained from the development of combat robots. The biggest obstacle that Facility 4691 was technological. The American lead in the field was considerable, covering an umber of fields such as artificial intelligence, control interface, motive systems, power, weaponry and so on. In fact, even American commercial robots were far ahead of their Chinese counterparts. The PLA’s one effort to deliver a battlefield robot, the Liberator, had been a disappointment in every regard. None the less, a team within Facility 4691 were tasked with developing a viable battlefield robot. Working under the project name of WOODEN MAN, they chose to focus on developing a humanoid weapons platform that would be able to support the People’s Liberation Army in the field while also being able to act as an autonomous hunter-killer unit. From the start the team faced a number of obstacles, not the least of which was building a functional humanoid frame. Their biggest boost came from the acquisition of a RobCo Protectron through one of the Mama Dolce’s covert intelligence bases who arranged for the robot to be smuggled back to the People’s Republic. Even then the team struggled with the control interface and target recognition. Initially planning to simply upgrade the technology used in the Liberator, the team instead found themselves wrestling with exponential increases in the complexity needed to make a fully autonomous humanoid battlefield robot. However, after many months of work (and the threat of being dissolved and their unproductive members purged) the team were able to deliver a functional prototype of a fully autonomous battlefield robot. Eager to prove their success, the WOODEN MAN team armed their test model with a pair of Light Machine Guns for a live weapons test (Issues with the DRAGON’S BREATH project as well as the lack of cooperation between the two teams made acquiring actual lasers impossible). The test was held before a panel of senior PLA officers, including General Weng Chaing, and conducted with considerable fanfare. Once activated, the prototype robot ignored its intended target and instead deemed the visiting dignitaries as being a viable target. General Chiang died in a hail of gunfire, along with his aides, several other officers, his driver and three members of an attending army Brass Band before the robot was shut down. WOODEN MAN was shut down shortly afterwards. Key members of the team, including its leader, were executed for treason. Project IRON WARRIOR One of the biggest obstacles faced by the PLA in their invasion of Alaska was the US Army’s T-45d Power Armour Suits. While these weapons were not able to turn back the invasion, they served to halt the Chinese advance cold and ensure that the campaign would turn into a stalemate. The presence of the Power Armour suits sent shockwaves through the Chinese leadership. They were an entirely new class of weapon, the likes of which had never been seen before. Furthermore, the PLA’s leadership expected that any future engagements with the US Army would involve Power Armour suits, and the quality of those suits would only increase. The invasion of the Chinese mainland served to underscore these fears. Developing a counter would not be easy. The United States had a monopoly on Power Armour technology; they were the only country in the world to deploy such units. Furthermore, the breakthroughs that had made such possible involved a number of fields where the United States held a considerable advantage over the People’s Republic, most notably in the field of nuclear power. The T-45d ran on a compact nuclear fusion reactor, something that Chinese technology could not hope to match. None the less, development of an indigenous Chinese Power Armour suit was seen as a matter of some urgency, bolstered by a sense of national pride. Project IRON WARRIOR was started with the intent of closing this gap and fielding a functional Power Armour suit. From the outset it was deemed to be Facility 4691’s top priority, with the project’s leadership given authority to overrule other project heads. This immediately lead to predatory headhunting where the IRON WARRIOR team would snap up any promising talent from other teams, seeking to bolster their own chances of success while simultaneously sabotaging their rivals. While the team quickly accrued a considerable talent pool, it still had a momentous task ahead. The development of a functional Power Armour suit depended on the advancement of a number of technologies, key among them being miniaturised nuclear power systems. However, at this point, the People’s Republic badly lagged behind the United States in the field. Efforts to duplicate American power systems (primarily through theft and industrial espionage) were slow going, and there were numerous setbacks along the way. In the worst incident, an entire theoretical team were lost when their efforts to dissect a stolen fusion core resulted in a catastrophic explosion. Even as there were researchers working on the power system, others were examining such fields as the motive systems, frame, actuators, motors, the armour itself and so on. Each one of them faced their own obstacles due to the lack of familiarity with the technologies involved and the need to play catch-up with the Americans. The field of armour research was especially problematic, as it required the team to devise protection that would be lightweight enough to allow the frame adequate mobility while also being able to protect against enemy weaponry, particularly the lasers that were commonplace in US Army forces. The American invasion of China added a new degree of urgency to the project as there were now Power Armour troopers on the homeland’s soil. However, it also added new opportunities. Dr Chan used his political contacts to acquire several disabled and captured T-45d suits for study in the hope of learning more about their systems and technologies. This allowed them to make several breakthroughs, but they still were a long way from a working prototype, let alone the mass production that the PLA’s leadership demanded. A new threat to the team also emerged from the invasion. Project IRON GHOST was set up by a different research facility as a way of shortcutting the development process. Rather than developing their own Power Armour, the IRON GHOST team was concentrating on repairing and rebuilding disabled T-45d suits and putting them into service with the People’s Liberation Army. Dr Chan saw this as a threat to his own team, and, through his contacts, sent agents to sabotage the IRON GHOST team. The result was the team’s leader was arrested on treason charges, while several partial T-45d suits were redirected to Facility 4691. Ultimately, IRON WARRIOR never delivered even a working prototype. It instead wound up as a sink into which considerable time, manpower and resources were thrown for no benefit at all. During the fall of Shanghai, members of the team were liquidated as a security precaution. The project was then officially terminated. Project HUNGRY ELEPHANT Not every project undertaken by Facility 4619 was launched in response to an American advance. Project HUNGRY ELEPHANT was one such example. It was originally sponsored by a cadre of People’s Liberation Army officers who held high ranking positions in several tank regiments. Their concern was that with the exhaustion of global fuel reserves their units would be rendered innefective and thus obsolete. As such, their goals were twofold; to ensure that the PLA would still be able to use their tank regiments and to protect their own positions within the millitary. HUNGRY ELEPHANT was launched with the aim of finding alternate power sources for tanks that would allow them to remain relevant and at the forefront of the People’s Liberation Army for years to come. The most immediate concern was what to use as an alternative, especially given how other projects were also struggling with matters of power source. Compact fusion still eluded Facility 4691’s teams, but the needs of the project (and pressure from Doctor Chen) compelled them to keep working. After a lot of work (and several fatal accidents) the team developed a relatively compact nuclear fission based engine, one that could hypothetically be mated to a vehicle hull. The most immediate problem with this prototype, however, was that it was still massively bulky, being bigger and far heavier than most conventional internal combustion engines. It was immediately obvious that this was not going to be a viable alternative; none the less, Doctor Chen was able to spin this as a ‘proof of concept’ prototype to be used to spur further development. The team searched around for a platform to mate their reactor to in order to produce a working technology demonstrator. They found it in Project 9382, a prototype superheavy battle tank. The program had been halted for a number of reasons, key among them was the combination of an underpowered engine and its terrible fuel efficiency which was seen as being counterproductive given the state of the Peoples Republic’s oil reserves. The HUNGRY ELEPHANT team were able to acquire one of the stored prototypes for use in their program. Delivered to one of Facility 4691’s annexes, the prototype tank was essentially gutted and rebuilt around the new reactor. Work was slow as the modifications to the tank proved to be more extensive than initially anticipated. In order to boost the program’s performance, Chen aquired the two other Project 9362 prototypes to use as engineering studies and, as was often needed, parts donors for when something on their test tank broke. Eventually the HUNGRY ELEPHANT prototype was completed. The result was an ugly, back-heavy vehicle that suffered through a clearly retrofitted design. To reassure their backers, the members of the project team suggested that future, purpose-built prototypes would be cleaner and more streamlined. Eager to see a return on their investment (and the cement their position) the officer cadre ordered a test of the new tank. The HUNGRY ELEPHANT prototype was transported by train to a nearby army proving ground for a public demonstration. Unknown to those involved, it had developed a crack in its reactor housing during handling, leaving a trail of contamination in its wake. When the tank was first powered on, it suffered a catastrophic meltdown that not only destroyed the prototype reactor but also irradiated the nearby area and killed the crew. The hulk was deemed to be too heavily contaminated to move and had to be left in place. The project was terminated shortly afterwards. Notable Staff Doctor Cheng The head of Facility 4691 was doctor Liu Cheng. Born and raised in Shanghai, Cheng’s family were Communist Party members who ensured that their son would want for nothing as he grew up. However, he also was a driven man who wanted to succeed on his own merit, a trait that was reflected in his academic performance. Cheng graduated at the top of his classes and then attended a prestigious Shanghai university. Once there, he majored in nuclear physics and received his doctorate. However, as much as this was driven by his own skills, his family’s influence also helped his career. Cheng would be engaged in numerous research projects over the course of his career, many of which were concerned with development of new energy sources. Cheng like many others was crucially aware of the depleted state of Chinese oil reserves, and felt that they needed to find alternatives or risk the Republic’s collapse. His successes, combined with his family standing, saw him promoted several times until the point that he was given the assignment to head up Facility 4691. In this role, Cheng began to become somewhat complacent, relying on his past achievements and family connections to keep him secure. He became skilled at picking out viable programs to showcase in order to ensure his position and the future of the facility. He played up their successes (even when they were marginal or years from fruition) while ensuring that the blame for their failures was shouldered by subordinates. As the situation got worse, especially as American forces advanced through mainland China, he became somewhat desperate to achieve results in order to protect his own future. When Facility 4691 wad closed, Cheng chose to flee rather than take any responsibility for his management and lack of results. It is assumed that he died in the Great War. Category:Places Category:China